Popular creator Soph, who produces satirical videos on politics, culture, and society, has had her Patreon account suddenly taken down. Patreon’s decision to shut down the account means that Soph has been cut off from almost 600 paid supporters who helped to fund her videos.
Soph has responded to the takedown by saying that she plans to set up a SubscribeStar account soon and is currently taking donations via her website and cryptocurrency wallets.
https://twitter.com/sewernugget/status/1157417155471609856
Soph’s videos are also still available on BitChute and she has started streaming on DLive where fans can donate to her.
Patreon hasn’t publicly commented on the removal of Soph’s account but its controversial terms of service say that Patreon may ban users if they engage in off-site activity that Patreon doesn’t approve of. Given these far-reaching terms of service, Patreon may be using YouTube’s deletion of Soph’s channel yesterday as the justification for closing down her Patreon account.
Like Patreon, YouTube also hasn’t publicly specified why Soph’s channel was removed but it did delete her most recent video “Pride and Prejudice” for supposed “hate speech” shortly before taking down her channel.
The shut down of Soph’s Patreon and YouTube channels comes after BuzzFeed published a hit piece about her in May. After this hit piece was published, Soph was blocked from uploading to YouTube. This upload block was then lifted in June before she was completely scrubbed from the platform yesterday.
The takedown of Soph’s Patreon account is reflective of it becoming increasingly necessary for creators to diversify their monetization options. Fan funding through Patreon was seen at one point seen as a way for creators to diversify their revenue streams. However, over the last year, Patreon has confirmed that it will close accounts for off-site behavior and increased the fees for creators.
As a result, creators are now increasingly setting up donation pages on their own websites, accepting donations through cryptocurrency wallets, and selling merchandise to fund their content creation.
